Couples Choice - Dubai

Arrive, transfer in - 25 to 40 minutes to most hotels depending on traffic - and let the first evening be unhurried. JBR after dark is made for couples: sea air, lit towers and dinner within a short walk. There is no jet lag to fight on this route, so simply start slow.

A slow breakfast, then Old Dubai as a pair: Al Fahidi lanes, the one-boat-at-a-time abra across the Creek, souk wandering without a schedule. Book the Burj Khalifa for the sunset window - those prime slots sell out first - and watch the fountains afterwards from the lake edge.

Skip the 6 am starts entirely; this is a holiday, not a drill. Late afternoon, head into the dunes - a private desert camp turns a good-value group outing into an actual romantic evening, and it is the one upgrade we suggest couples take here. Stars, fire, dinner, quiet.

Spend the day on Palm Jumeirah with a beach base at Atlantis, then come back for a dhow cruise dinner on the Marina. The wooden boat is unashamedly touristy and still the best table two people can get on the water.

A morning built around the pool or spa, whichever your hotel does well. In the afternoon, the Dubai Frame gives you the old city on one side and the new on the other - a neat way to close the trip. One last fountain show after dark asks nothing of the schedule.

Checkout, one unhurried coffee, and the ride to DXB with a proper three-hour buffer. If the flight is late evening, spend the spare afternoon at Dubai Mall rather than the terminal - the airport is a place to pass through, not to sit in.